Agreeing a time control not permitted by the rules?

[John Upham]

Following discussions with various Captains I have this question :

What is the correct procedure for a team captain to take if players attempt to agree a time control not permitted by the rules of the competition?

I'm mainly referring to evening league matches.

I've observed this happening in some matches but I do not allow it to happen in matches where I am the Captain / Arbiter.

In matches where I am the Captain, I always attempt to use DGT XL clocks and set the TC for the players before they arrive

I hope no-one will suggest we should allows players to do what they like!

[Roger de Coverly]

What is the correct procedure for a team captain to take if players attempt to agree a time control not permitted by the rules of the competition?

do not allow it to happen

[John Upham]

I agree Roger. So that is that problem solved : thanks for your help!

Unfortunately, life is more difficult than that.

I know of a number of games that have been played in Berkshire League matches using a G90 TC. This is not one of the permitted TCs.

Many Captains do not give a stuff : should we concern ourselves and if so, how?

[Stewart Reuben]

You can turn a blind eye if you want, but is against the rules.

I liked the alleged story of a county match before I played at such an exalted level. Raaphy Persitz and, I think, David Lloyd agreed to play with the bishops and knights on the reversed squares.

Stewart Reuben

[John Upham]

Would it be permissible to allow the players to play Fischer Random or some other approved variant? As long as the time control complied with standard play criteria the game could be rated...

[Stewart Reuben]

Of course - provided the authorities never knew about it.

Accidentally Arpad Elo rated an English blitz tournament he found in Chess Magazine. 3 English players got very flattering first ratings. He was never told of his mistake. The Lord John Cup of 1977 'profited' from his error.

Stewart Reuben

[Leonard Barden]

Accidentally Arpad Elo rated an English blitz tournament he found in Chess Magazine. 3 English players got very flattering first ratings. He was never told of his mistake. The Lord John Cup of 1977 'profited' from his error.

Three? I assume two were Law and Blackstock, but I thought Lambert got his 2400+ from the British championship at Portsmouth. The outcome was that the Lord John Cup had the only possible combination of players on the entire (then quite small) Fide list who were realistically available and could raise the tourrnament average to 2476, making the GM norm 5.5/9 and enabling all three of Stean, Nunn and Mestel to achieve it.

[James Pratt]

No, Stewart. It was a 15 minute tournament.
1st D Bronstein 8/9, 2nd J Timman 7.5; 3rd= E Geller & R Keene 7, 5th LSF Blackstock 4.5, 6th R Wade 4 7th A Hanreck 3, 8th S Fancy & JP Hannan 1.5, 10th D Hamilton 1.

The x-table is in Keene's 'Becoming a Grandmaster', p70.

Blackstock played in the Lord John under a Scots banner, Stuart Fancy went to Papua & New Guinea and won a board prize in the Olympiad for them.

Interesting that Leonard remembers Glenn Lambert. He was still alive when last I heard but in care, institutionalised. He went to the World Open in the US by public subscription ...

[Alex Holowczak]

The Birmingham Junior League has always said that it must be 30 moves in an hour, then back 15 minutes. Yet I never played a game in five years that wasn't 60 minutes for the game. One time it was even 45 minutes each for the game!

[Stewart Reuben]

What mines of old information we all are and much of it half-remembered!
Les Blackstock was definitely overrated in thed Lord John Cup because of Elo's error. So all 10 players benefited. 15 minute chess is these days blitz. At that time rapidplay wasn't used internationally. It was called quickplay in England until somebody pointed out to me that caused confusion with quickplay finish. 15 minute chess did not have a name in 1977.
I have forgotten why Glenn Lambert was also very good value for rating. He was though rather odd, but I had no idea he had been institutionalised.
Here is an anecdote about him that may have been forgotten.
He adjourned against Kotov in the LJC and offered him a draw. Kotov said, 'How dare you offer me a draw when I am completely winning?'
So Glenn flummoxed resigned. Here my memory goes vague, but it is easily checked. Either he was winning (the better story) or it was drawn.
Stewart Reuben

[John Saunders]

That is very well remembered, Stewart...

I keyed in the games from this bulletin many years ago (which is how they come to be on most databases) but I can't yet find my copy of the bulletin to check the story. However, I'm pretty sure you are right.

Kotov,A (2500) - Lambert,G (2420) [A48]
Lord John Cup London (4), 08.09.1977

1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3 g6 3 Bf4 Bg7 4 e3 0-0 5 Nbd2 d6 6 h3 c5 7 c3 Nc6 8 Bc4 a6 9 a4 cxd4 10 exd4 e5 11 Be3 e4 12 Nh2 d5 13 Ba2 Be6 14 0-0 Ne7 15 Nb3 Nd7 16 Qd2 Nf5 17 Bf4 Qe7 18 f3 Nd6 19 Na5 Rfc8 20 Bxd6 Qxd6 21 fxe4 dxe4 22 Nxb7 Qb6 23 Bxe6 Qxe6 24 Qf2 Qd5 25 Nc5 Nxc5 26 dxc5 Qxc5 27 Qxc5 Rxc5 28 Rad1 f5 29 g4 Rb8 30 Rf2 Be5 31 Nf1 f4 32 Re2 f3 33 Red2 Bc7 34 Ne3 Bb6 35 Kf1 h5 36 Rd6 Rg5 37 h4 Bxe3 38 hxg5 hxg4 39 Rxg6+ Kf7 40 Rdd6 Re8 41 Rdf6+ Ke7 1-0

Lambert is certainly not losing at the end but it takes Fritz and co quite a while to figure out that he might indeed be winning.

At the LJC I remember being the first person to the table to congratulate Michael Stean on getting his final GM norm. Asked what it meant to him, I seem to remember Michael saying "now I can charge more money!". Now that it is in the public domain that Les's rating was incorrectly calculated and presumably the tournament's GM norm requirement wrong, will Michael have to surrender his GM title?

[John Upham]

but I can't yet find my copy of the bulletin to check the story. However, I'm pretty sure you are right.

I have an original copy of this bulletin c/w a rusty staple. It cost £1.75 from BH Wood.
There are no words alluding to the events of Kotov - Lambert.

The bulletin was living with many others from that period including the one from the Phillips & Drew Kings Chess Tournament, 10- 25 April 1980 costing £3

The demo board operators were :

Steven Quigley, Lavina Pereira, Jonathan Levitt, Simon Dighton, Karen Cartmel, Neil Fox, John Upham , Derek Jacobs, David Barasi , Alan Hanreck, Carey Groves, Sara Penn, Peter Hannan, Peter Clark....

Happy days!

[Stewart Reuben]

One would have hardly put in a daily bulletin something so embarrassing to two of the players. But why else would Glenn have resigned in a somewhat better position? I know Leonard put together the LJC, but who was the arbiter? It certainly wasn't me.

John Upham, why oh why, have you never bought a copy of my book written with Bill Hartston 'London 1980'?

Nigel Short acted briefly as a demo board operator in the 1982 tournament. I am pretty sure I didn't ask him to do that. Perhaps he simply volunteered.

Other strong demo board operators include: David Bronstein, Jan Timman, John Nunn. I wonder whether any country can beat that?

Stewart Reuben

[John Philpott]

Going back to the original subject matter of this thread, I have always been strongly opposed to a situation where there are rules that are persistently ignored: you should either observe the rules or take steps to get them changed. There is no reason why the rules themselves should not allow considerable flexibility provided that both sides agree. For example, the SCCU County Match rules prescribe a playing session where mechanical clocks are used of 35 moves in 105 minutes and then 30 minutes extra for each player for the remainder of the game, but go on to say that for any match the captains may agree to vary the number of moves to the time control, the time allowed to the time control, and the length of the quickplay finish, provided that:

(a) there is a quickplay finish; and

(b) the games remain eligible for Standard-Play grading.

[John Saunders]

Add to the list of distinguished demo board operators... Matthew Sadler, during the 1998 Adams-Rowson match (which I've just realised to my horror is not on BritBase - must fix that...).